Degrees of Separation
by LifefullofStories
Summary: "For two people who trust each other with our lives when it comes to work, we suck at trusting each other with our thoughts outside." Alex and Mike's journey to see where they will end up if they start trusting each other and behaving like adults.
1. Chapter 1

**CHAPTER 1**

After a long and tiring day, spent completely on her feet in the courtroom and out, Assistant District Attorney Alexandra Cooper was ready to call it a day by the time the clock in her office struck 6. She leaned back in her chair trying to get the knots of tension out of her neck that were the results of the continuous stress which woke her up every morning and slept with her every night as part of her job.

She had just wrapped her direct for her third witness in a domestic abuse case and knew that she was still some way away from getting the jury on her side. The state was representing Kara Wheeler, a college dropout 26 year old who had been married for 6 years to Dr. Logan Wheeler, a practicing psychiatrist in the posh Upper West Side of Manhattan. For 5 of those years, she had been a prisoner in a sound-proofed room in the basement of their town house – where her husband – the shrink was playing his very own mind games with her. During one of his trips outside the house, Kara found to her surprise that the door was not locked properly. She was thanking fate on a lot of counts. That she was a prisoner for 5 years without trying to escape before today had lulled her husband into a sense of security. And the fact that she had tried today of all days to give the heavy door a push.

She practically ran out of the town house with nothing but the clothes on her back to the nearest precinct. The detective in charge setup a series of events to catch the husband the following week. This was 2 months back. Mercer Wallace, Alex's close friend and a first grade detective who caught the case setup a meeting for Kara with Alex – who headed the District Attorney's Special Victims Unit.

The case had come to trial in the last week and Alex had to butt heads with her mentor – Lem Howell the Third, who had been hired by the wealthy, upstanding psychiatrist in an attempt to discredit the charges and his wife completely. The trial would not be a long one, but it would definitely be difficult – given how jurors were willing to side with the handsome medical professional husband, who must have had a solid reason to hold his uneducated young wife so that she would not meander through the city and get lost in her ways.

Alex rubbed her forehead, knowing the early signs of a headache. She thought about her plans for the evening. She could go out and have dinner with her friends or she could go home, steep in a bath and hit the sack early.

The former involved sitting through dinner with Detective Mike Chapman, who although was Alex's best friend and partner was someone she was trying to avoid spending time outside of work with. Their friendship had been complicated to begin with, but Alex had been feeling the strains of their relationship over the past year or so. The constant biting and sniping that Mike kept up in front of others or alone, the stream of random hook-ups since his fiancé Val's death. Alex thought that somewhere he felt the same attraction, same tension that she did. It was there in the way he turned up to babysit Logan with her last year, in the way he worried about her and how her job affected her, and in the way that he kissed her that one night on the arsenal rooftop in Central Park. That last bit of action had Alex confused more than ever. Even though Mike had kissed her and asked her to spend the night with him watching the stars, he had not really followed up on it. He had got embroiled in the Judge Pell matter and even when that had cleared up; he seemed to go out of his way to act as if nothing significant had happened between the two of them. So much so that Alex started having second thoughts on whether the night at Central Park really happened or was just a part of her imagination. Somewhere along the line, she decided that she could not add a permanent question mark regarding this relationship to the thousands of questions that plagued her at work anyway.

So, a couple of months back, she decided to take the problem by the horns and made her way to Mike's apartment one Saturday evening to get it all out in the open. When a surprised Mike let her in and asked her the reason for her out-of-the-blue visit, she decided to be as truthful to him as she needed to be to herself.

"What are we doing, Mike?"

"You are in my apartment Coop, and asking the obvious. Why don't you tell me what you are doing here?"

"It's a Saturday night, Mike. Why aren't you and I having a dinner date somewhere nice?" Alex had asked the question. She wasn't very worried about any self-embarrassment at this point. She just wanted to get rid of the angst.

"Are we supposed to be somewhere that I forgot? I don't recall having asked you out on a date, Coop". Mike had offered her a glass of wine, which she had declined. Alex really did not see this as a romantic or even social call.

"That's exactly what I am asking Mike. Why not? Why have you not asked me out on a date? It's been two months since that night at Central Park. Why have you not kissed me again? Why are we not practically living at each other's apartments yet?" Alex could sense the desperation in her voice, but couldn't help keeping it out.

"Coop, you know that wouldn't be very appropriate for us. I don't think Mr. B would appreciate us crashing at each other's place more often than is needed on work" Mike was starting to give vague answers, and Alex knew he was the last person who cared about what everyone else thought of anything. She put her hands up in frustration at getting nowhere in the conversation and had turned around to leave. That's when her eye caught up with the rest of his apartment.

After Val's death, Mike had made a shrine to her in his apartment. It was almost as if she lived there with him – her books, her shoes, her clothes – everything used to be spread out across the apartment. It didn't look like a serial killer's shrine that day – but Alex made out the 3 photographs of him and Val by his bedside as well as the photographs taped on his refrigerator. She couldn't see if the shoes and clothes were still occupying his cupboard, but had felt that what she saw was enough.

Clearly, Mike hadn't moved on. And Alex had been a friend of Val's. That day she felt like she had betrayed the memory of a sweet friend who had such tough luck in life. She had turned around and caught his eye – where she saw a mixture of emotions – of doubt, of longing. Whether the longing was for Val or for her, Alex couldn't tell. But she could clearly see that the doubt was reserved for her exclusively. She had turned away before he could see the intense hurt that came into her eyes and had left the vicinity of his apartment as quickly as she could.

Since that Saturday evening, Alex had tried to put up her game face on and kept her interactions with Mike completely platonic. She still had to have dinner with him, have him sleep at her place; go on long rides with him – that was all a part of their job. But she kept herself from thinking about him in any other sense. Her reminiscing was interrupted by the buzzing of her cell phone. She saw that it was the object of her thoughts calling her. Alex had decided to not behave in any way that could be construed as whiny, self-pitying or plain bitchy. She had decided to be as normal as possible. With that in mind, she switched the phone on.

"Hello?"

"Your day still not over, Coop? We're waiting for you at your favourite Primola, and won't start ordering before you come in."

"Just order the soup for me, Mike. I'm on my way."

With a click of her cell phone, Alex got up from her desk – switched off the lights and went out to dinner with her two best friends.


	2. Chapter 2

**CHAPTER 2**

"Where's Mercer? I thought you said "We"?" Alex asked as slid in the booth from across Mike in a far corner of the restaurant.

"Well, I knew that would be the only way that you would come here to have dinner with me. If I had told you, it was only me I know you would have made some excuse." Mike's eyes were on me and I was willing to look anywhere but into them.

"Good to know that you equate me with a teenager with a sulking issue, Mike. Always a boost to my self-confidence." Alex was still not looking directly at him, but thanked Adolfo for her drink and started playing with it.

"If your self-confidence boosted any higher, Counselor, you would be going to trials in the stratosphere" Mike was trying to bait her and Alex knew that very well. If only anyone knew the kind of hit that her self-confidence had taken after that night at Mike's apartment.

"Coop, look at me." Mike's voice had lowered an octave and Alex looked at him with what she hoped were her 'tough-as-nails' prosecutor look.

"What happened to us?" Mike's question threw Alex off-balance. But she was quick to recover.

"I don't know what you mean, Mike."

"Why won't you spend any time alone with me anymore? Seems lately, you and I have always interacted when someone is around. More like you always ensure that someone else is around". His tone had become mildly accusatory and that had Alex retorting before she could check it.

"And why should we be spending any alone time together, Mike? We spend time with each other for work, isn't it and if there are others involved, I don't see how I can stop them from being a part of it."

"Come clean, Coop. This high-handed priestess role doesn't suit you well. I thought we were friends, outside of work also…"

"Are we?" Alex cut him off mid-sentence. "We're friends, really? Is that why you make a point of being rude and insensitive to me in front of all our colleagues, whenever you can? Is that why you never let me help you with Val, when you clearly needed a friend? Is that why you shut me out Mike?"

Mike's jaw hardened and he closed his eyes. Alex's voice became a whisper, after this outburst.

"Is that why you thought it was ok to let me believe that we might be more than friends? Is that why you kissed me?"

Mike opened his eyes and reached out and caught Alex's hand. He intertwined his fingers with hers and didn't let go when she tried to pull away.

"Is that why you couldn't tell me that I was a mistake, Mike?" Alex knew that she was becoming teary at this point. She knew Mike hated tears and that he had threatened to abandon her numerous times when she had been on the verge of crying.

Mike started to speak, but Alex cut him off "Is that why you couldn't trust me enough to tell me that you had doubts about us? That you still longed for Val, and that night with me was a mistake?"

"Coop, why don't we go to your place and talk this out?" Mike was trying to reach for Alex's tears now but she scooted further into her seat.

She shook her head resolutely. "That's why I came by your place that other night, Mike. To talk this out. You didn't want to, that night. You made a joke of it – like you do with most other things concerning me. That's when I learnt, to my great consternation that Val still lived with you. And that would have been ok with me, Mike. If only my best friend had the courage to tell me that himself. Guess we're not friends after all."

With that Alex got out of her booth and slipped out. When Mike tried to reach and catch her wrist, Alex simply ducked out of reach and walked out. The headache that had threated to begin while in office was in full swing now and she was just able to make it out of the restaurant before the tears began to fall.


	3. Chapter 3

**CHAPTER 3**

Mike Chapman leaned his head back on his restaurant seat and looked up into the carved ceiling, unsure of what kind of inspiration he was looking for. He had known that there was something brewing between Alex and him, these last couple of months. He was also not bull-headed enough to know that it had to do with Alex's visit to his apartment to get some answers vis-à-vis their relationship. He knew he had messed it up that day. He had made light of her questions and given her some bullshit that he should have been smart enough to not give even in his most drunken stupor.

But Mike was not one to keep replaying past scenes in his head. He was a problem solver. He needed to fix this. He needed to get Alex to be his friend again. And if he played his cards right, then maybe he could hope for something more. And the first step to all that was to be honest – to Coop and to himself. He signalled for the bill and decided to catch up with his best friend.

As he parked in front of Coop's apartment and got out, her doorman Vinny came jogging up to him.

"Hey, Mr. Chapman. Bad day at court?"

"Why would you say that, Vinny?" Mike had a sense of why the doorman might think so. Coop had bright unshed tears in her eyes as she had left Primola. She must have been a sight when she came home.

"Never seen Ms. Cooper look so lost. She actually walked up to the front door and then realized that she wanted to get some soup from Gracie's." Mike thought of Coop's untouched soup at Primola and was glad to hear that at least she was not planning on starving herself.

"She'll be fine, Vinny. I'll just catch up with her at Gracie's". As Mike got into his Crown Vic, he heard the radio crackle and heard a message that on any other day would have been routine for a cop in NYC.

A shooting in a supermarket. Near the Upper East End.

Those two sentences added a hundred years to Mike as he pressed the accelerator to reach Gracie's praying fervently that this was not the supermarket that had become a random violence target.


	4. Chapter 4

**CHAPTER 4**

As Mike turned the corner, he could see the squad cars that had responded to the situation outside Gracie's. His heart sank and his head swam when he thought that Coop was in there, hurt or worse.

He raced ahead and showed his badge to the uniform who was cordoning off the area. The cop informed him that it was just a B&E robbery gone bad. The perp had shot 2 people in the store before the responding squad cars picked him up. EMT was on its way.

Mike raced inside the store and saw his worst nightmare – Alex lying in a pool of blood on the floor of a supermarket she visited daily. Blindly, Mike ran and cradled her head while checking for a pulse. He was relieved to find a thready one but saw that the gunshot wound to her chest had her bleeding profusely. He tried to stem the bleeding with his jacket, while screaming for the cops to get the EMT quickly. Alex was unconscious. If she were conscious, she could see the irony of becoming a store robbery target after all the misses from homicidal maniacs.

Mike started speaking softly to her, even though she had gone deathly still.

"Coop, the docs will be here in less than a minute. I need you to hang on, ok? You're a tough kid, think of all the rapists and murderers you still have to put behind bars. Think of your parents, Coop. They want you to get married and give them grandkids…" Mike's eyes started blurring as he realized that the life blood of his best friend was seeping through his fingers on to the dirty store floor.

"Coop, you gotta take Logan to the Zoo this weekend, remember? You can't break promises that you make to a 4 year old, you hear? Mercer will never speak with you again." Mike wanted to say things that he realized he didn't have the courage to say to her when she was face to face with him and in a position to retort to. But he knew that anything he said to her now, for himself, for them would only stack up points in the "Mike Chapman is a Wuss" table. Thankfully, he could see the EMTs making their way into the store.

He gently extricated himself so that the paramedics could start their work. He was unable to tear his gaze from the sight of the amount of blood that was now no more a part of Alex. He was sure that he was about to start hyperventilating, but couldn't afford to do so when he was the only one to take care of her.

"Where are you taking her?" Mike asked the paramedic who was loading Alex onto the stretcher.

"Columbia Pres" The paramedic didn't even turn around to answer her as started wheeling her towards the ambulance.

"I'm riding with you." Mike got in after Alex and held onto her hand. The same hand that she had pulled away from him earlier this evening.


	5. Chapter 5

**CHAPTER 5**

When Mercer Wallace came hurtling through the doors that led to the surgical wing of Columbia Presbyterian, he took in a sight that was not very often seen. One he hoped, he would not have to often see, or preferably, every again.

Mike Chapman was sitting on a bench along the wall, his head in his hands and his shirt sleeves covered with blood. When Val had had the freak skiing accident, Mercer had worried that Mike would go off the deep end. The accident and Val's sudden death had triggered a deep seated anger in Mike. An anger which he did not know what to do with. Mercer knew, from an objective standpoint, that Alex had taken a large brunt of that anger. And she had kept quiet about it because she knew that it was all a part of the healing process for Mike. Mercer was not entirely sure what would happen to Mike if Alex did not make it through this.

It was only on seeing Mike, that Mercer was able to shelve his worry for Alex for a minute. His car ride from his Queens home to the city had been fraught with nerves. Alex was one of his closest friends, and he knew that she felt about him the same way. Now he knew how Alex must have felt when he himself had been shot some years back.

He pulled his shoulders to his full height and walked towards Mike and kept his hand on the younger man's shoulder. Mike did not look up immediately. When he slowly looked up, he barely acknowledged Mercer with a nod.

"She's in surgery. Bullet to the chest. Lost a lot of blood. But you can already see that." Mike's almost clinical droning of the facts told Mercer how affected he was. Now that Mike had looked up, he could see that his entire shirt front was also soaked in blood, Alex's blood.

"What happened?"

Mike told Mercer about the near-dinner that he had with Alex at Primola. The argument they had without the specifics, how she had left. Everything up to the point the doctors wheeled her into surgery. Mike knew that Mercer didn't know about their Central Park night and there would be a better time to tell him about it. He only hoped there would be a better time to tell him about it.

"She'll pull through it. You know Alex, Mike. You're the one who keeps saying that she's the most hard headed broad you've ever seen." Even though Mercer was trying to keep spirits up, Mike could hear the deep-seated worry in his words.

"Can you believe that I feel like offing myself for every snarky thing that I have said to her, ever?" Mike sighed and leaned back to look at the ceiling. "I almost feel like putting up a prayer and bartering her life for never saying anything mean to her ever again."

"I don't think Alex herself would want you to do that, m'man. She wouldn't know what to do with a nice you." Mercer sat down next to Mike and put his hand on Mike's knee as an offer of comfort.

"She left me at Primola thinking that we were not friends and that I didn't care about her. That I hadn't moved on from Val. That I had doubts about my feelings for Coop." Mike's resigned declaration of the personal current between him and Alex did not really surprise Mercer. After all, he and Vickee were the ones at the forefront pushing Alex to get it on with Mike. But he wasn't sure where things stood lately between his two best friends. From Mike's admission, he could gather that things had moved forward and had hit a snag also.

"Do you?" Mercer asked quietly. This was as good a time as any to get the truth out of Mike Chapman. "Do you have doubts about Alex? What do you feel for her anyway?"

Mercer's question went unanswered as Mike seemed to reflect on it for what seemed like an eternity. "It's important to understand that I probably will never move on from Val completely. I think Coop would understand that better than anyone else. But I am letting go, a little bit more everyday. For me, Coop is the essential link to letting go. I am not clear on where we are in this, but I don't have any doubts, Mercer. You know I love her. We've not yet begun the journey to see where this will take us. But, I have no doubts."

"Have you told her this?"

"No. But I also didn't know for sure what her stand was."

"Do you have to wonder, Mike? After all these years? Alex Cooper has withstood every barb, every rude comment that you have thrown her way. She was very happy for you and Val, while you were together and didn't have an ounce of jealousy for the happiness that you had found. She wished fervently that you would let her in as part of your healing process. She took it in her stride, when you shut her out at every corner. Even when she was with Luc, thinking that she was in love with him, you were always her first priority. She was the one who got you out of that Pell mess, you know? At great jeopardy to her career. She swore me to a blood oath, not to tell you. But here you are, sitting with her blood on your shirt."

Mike's surprised reaction told Mercer that Alex had never gotten around to revealing her role in getting Judge Pell to back off Mike.

Mike went back to putting his head in his hands and whispered so softly that Mercer could hardly hear him. "I'm scared. For the first time, I'm scared to my bones, Mercer. What if she doesn't get through this?"

Mercer swallowed and closed his eyes. It would be a long night of waiting for the two of them. One they would never forget easily.


	6. Chapter 6

**CHAPTER 6**

After what seemed like the whole night, but was actually three hours, the surgeon in-charge informed Mercer and Mike about Alex's status. She had lost a lot of blood and the bullet had ruptured some of her arteries and veins. They had removed the bullet and had tried to make up for the blood loss. She was in the ICU, currently unconscious. The doctor informed them that it could take anywhere between 48-72 hours for her to regain consciousness.

Hospital policy allowed only one person in the ICU, so Mercer headed home with the news while Mike pulled up a chair next to Alex's bed.

She looked deathly pale, from all the blood loss. Mike thought she looked small and frail with all the monitors beeping around her and all the wires attached to her. He took her hand in his, lowered his head onto the bed and fell asleep.

She needed to open her eyes. She needed to speak.

But she was unable to do either. Her eyes felt heavy as if they were shut with lead, and she was sure that she has no saliva left in her mouth to speak. So, she did what she could do. She moaned silently and tried to move her head a bit. She didn't know why she was this way – maybe some psycho had finally caught hold of her and she was never getting out of this one. She couldn't remember which psycho, which case. Through her dull thoughts, she hoped Mike and Mercer would rescue her as always.

Someone was touching her hand, or holding her hand. She wasn't sure. She didn't know who, but even through the haze she started feeling a bit hopeful. Surely a psycho killer wouldn't be holding her hand and stroking it repeatedly. But then again, he was a psycho.

She heard a few whispering voices and what sounded like ice chips clinking somewhere around her. She made a massive effort to open her eyes and was able to part them open halfway this time. She was in a hospital room – she was able to make that out clearly. She tried to move her head to the side where her hand was being held. She saw a dense shock of black hair covering the detective whose head was on her bedside. She tried to extricate her hand from his grip. But she found out that either she was not strong enough to carry out such a basic task or that the grip was really firm. She didn't want to wake him, but she really needed some water. She couldn't even ring for the nurse without her hand. Once again, she tried to wriggle her hand. This time, the action woke him up.

Through her partial vision, she saw her best friend looking more tired than she had ever seen him. His eyes were bloodshot and she could make out the five o clock shadow on his jaw. She also saw enormous relief and something else in his eyes as they met hers. It got her thinking how she came to be here in this hospital room, with her favourite detective holding her hand. She tried to move her lips, but he was out of his chair before she could try. He got the glass of ice chips which was resting on her side tray and held one out to her to suck on. He put the glass down and came near her face. She was already exhausted from the 5-minute effort and felt her eyes blocking shut again.

She wanted to find out about things, but she heard him whisper to her.

"Don't worry about anything now. Go back to sleep. We need you to get better as quickly as possible. I..uh.… I can't stand to see you like this." He was stroking her hair in a rhythmic pattern, while he kept speaking softly. "You once asked me if I liked vulnerable women. I told you that not everyone can be as self-reliant as you, and it feels good to be needed, once in a while."

She was watching him through sleep-leaden eyes as he spoke to her.

"This is not the type of needing that I was talking about. Today, you're lying in this hospital bed barely able to open your eyes and I can't stand the sight of it. I know you're not made of steel, like I keep telling you. I know you have your moments of vulnerability and you don't let me see those because I am always making light of your thoughts and feelings. I'm telling you today that in the future, I am going to be there for every moment that you have, vulnerable or not. I won't leave even if you throw me out. You just need to make a deal with me. You won't walk out on our friendship. I can't deal with that. I can't deal with you walking out of my life. We'll start at the beginning. We'll figure it out. Just don't give up on me. Not today."

He bent down further and planted a soft kiss on her forehead. She closed her eyes, knowing that she was in her safe place.


	7. Chapter 7

The Saturday morning sunshine was streaming through the window of the nice room that the staff had shifted Alex into. 3 days since she was brought in with a GSW, she had been declared fit to leave the ICU yesterday and had moved to a private room with a view.

Alex was half-sitting in the reclined bed and looking out at the sunshine. She had figured out how she got here, and she had also recollected the chain of events that took place before she landed up as a near-victim of random violence. The dinner with Mike, the words exchanged. It explained to her his monologue to her that night in the ICU. Alex decided to shelve the hurt and the anger which had she been harbouring over the last previous months and focus on healing herself so that she could get back to her normal life.

"Good morning sunshine. Look what I brought."

Alex was shaken from her thoughts as she looked in the opposite direction where the room's door was. Her friend Vickie was standing in the doorway, bright yellow lilies in one hand and an excited 4 year old in another.

"Lexi!" Logan was excited as ever and came forward with a rush to hug her.

Alex reached out to give him a one arm hug, and even that sent a bolt of pain shooting through her arm. She tried to not wince in front of the child.

"Hey Champ! You finally came to see me. Here I was thinking you forgot."

Logan climbed onto the bed beside her and put his head on her shoulder, "Mama told me I could come see you once your boo-boo was better."

"It is much better, now that you're here." Alex smiled at the eager young face and was happy to see him look satisfied.

"How're you feeling?" Vickee was seated in the chair next to the bed, which was unoccupied since Mike left early that morning to freshen up at home.

"I'm much better. I am almost sick of the hospital and would like to go back home now."

"There'll be time for you to go home. They need to be sure you're completely fine."

"Where's Mercer? I haven't seen him since yesterday afternoon."

"He's caught a case. And with you out of the picture, he's trying to make things a bit easier for Sarah and team."

Alex had had her entire posse visit her yesterday but only Sarah had been allowed in. Only one visitor was allowed in the ICU, and Mike had taken up that seat for most of the time. Sarah had briefed her on the latest in the office, just to keep up the normalcy and had told her that the boss had asked her to take as much time as needed.

After 15 minutes, the nurse came in to shoo her visitors out so that she could get some rest.

"This is what happens when aunts fall sick. Now, I have to take Logan here to the Zoo to keep up your promise." Vickee said as she held onto Alex's hand

"I'm sorry little guy. Once I'm out of here, we will do a full day picnic at the Park. How does that sound?"

Logan looked excited. "That sounds great. We'll take Mikey along too. He can then show me all the dinosaur hideouts."

With his grin intact, he leaned in and gave Alex a kiss on the cheek and went out of the room holding his mom's hand. Once the little boy's infectious warmth left the room, Alex was reminded of the throbbing pain in her arm. They had been giving her painkillers till she was in the ICU, but the dosage had been reduced since this morning so that she could be more lucid.

She closed her eyes and tried to focus on the good things in life so that the pain would stop bothering her. She didn't realize that she had drifted off until she heard the sound of footsteps and could feel someone hovering around her bedside table.

She slowly opened her eyes to find Mike Chapman squinting at the yellow lilies that Logan had brought.

"I was out of here for a couple of hours, and you managed to get flowers from another guy? Now, what do I do with these?" He waved a bunch of lovely pink rosebuds so that she could see.

Alex smiled slightly, as much as her pain would allow her to.

"Yeah, the roses don't stand a chance. My main squeeze got me the lilies first thing this morning. He decided to stop in and give me the flowers along with a few hugs and kisses, on his way to the zoo."

Mike smiled, "I missed Logan? Oh, man! And I'm losing to a 4 year old. I'm really losing my touch."

He placed the roses in her arms and looked at her.

"What's wrong? Are you not feeling well?"

"I am in the hospital. Why would you think that I wasn't feeling well?" Alex closed her eyes and bit her lip from a sudden streak of pain.

She could feel Mike sit down next to her on the bed and felt his hand touching her cheek.

"Are you in pain? Is it hurting? Do you want me to get the nurse?"

Alex opened her eyes and nodded. "I think it's part of getting shot. I already spoke to the nurse. She told me she'd get me something in a while."

Mike nodded. He moved her hand away from her cheek and started to get up, but Alex caught his hand. He looked at her in surprise, as she intertwined her fingers with his and said, "I'm not giving up on you. Not today. Not ever. You are my best friend, Mike. Nothing's going to change that. Ever."

Mike went back to sitting next to her on the bed and held both her hands in his. "Thank you. Then I want to ask you for something else as well. I want you to not give up on us either."

Alex dropped her eyes to look at their hands.

"There's no 'US' Mike. There's you and there's me. And sometimes I believe there's an 'Us'. But I know you don't. So, there's no 'Us'."

He lifted her chin so that her eyes were level with his.

"I know you think that I don't believe so. But I do too, sometimes. I think, our sometimes don't coincide. I think, as far as best friends go, we suck. We suck at being truthful to one another outside work. For two people who trust each other with our lives when it comes to work, we suck at trusting each other with our thoughts outside."

"And whose fault is that Mike?" Alex was starting to get tired and the pain was weighing on her earlier decision to get rid of all the anger.

She saw hurt come into his eyes briefly, before he shut it out and looked at her. She felt sorry for causing even that brief moment of hurt, when she knew that largely it was circumstances that made them behave the way they did.

"I'm sorry. It's both our fault. We've become really good at tiptoeing around each other and we've had some crappy timing issues. I'm sorry for lashing out. After you've been spending every waking moment of the last 3 days next to me. That was very petty of me."

He laid a finger against her lips to silence her. "You don't need to apologize for lashing out just because I've been here with you. Do you think I could be anywhere else? Do you think I need your gratitude for holding your hand after you were shot?"

His voice became a whisper. "Do you think I will ever be able to erase the memory of seeing you lie in a pool of blood?" Her eyes shot up to meet his, as he continued speaking. "We have a lot of things to talk about, Coop. There is clearly a lot of angst pent up against each other. And I remember telling you once that the angst wasn't good for us. But, now I think we need to just work through it. I don't think we can become the perfect couple everyone makes us out to be, overnight. Hell, I don't think we can even become any couple, overnight. What you and I have is different from most other people and I don't know whether I even want to change that. I want us to be who we are, naturally. And figure 'Us' out, in spite of that."

"Are you going to stop calling me Blondie and making me look stupid in front of others?"

Mike saw her lips lifting slightly around the corner and noticed a tiny spark in her eyes. He flashed his biggest grin and winked at her.

"Not a chance."

"Well, that's a relief. I was starting to wonder how I'll deal with all this soft touch and sensible words."

He slowly moved in and placed a soft kiss on her lips.

"Look at this way. For all the crap that you'll put up with while at work, I'll make up with the soft touch and the sensible words when it's just us."

Alex felt her heart melting. She wanted to throw her arms around him and hold him close, all the pain be damned. But she knew it would be too much, too soon.

"Go to sleep, Blondie. Everything is fine."

With that, he helped her settle down into the pillows where Alexandra Cooper entered a state of peaceful slumber.


	8. Chapter 8

Comfortable wearing her slacks and oversized shirt, Alex settled into the couch in her living room, while her best friend Nina Baum made coffee in her kitchen. She had been discharged from the hospital yesterday and her friend had flown across from LA to be with her for a week.

"Tell me again; how you think Gabe will manage without you for a week?" Alex called out to her friend in the kitchen.

Nina came out carrying two mugs of coffee and placed one in Alex's hands.

"Jerry's parents are over and all Gabe needs for a week is to have pampering from his grandparents, without any interference from Mom. Works well for both of us." Nina sipped her coffee and looked across at her friend. She had been terrified when she got the call from Mercer about Alex getting shot. It was all she could do to not fly out on the very next flight. But Mercer had convinced her that there was no point in her rushing over, when they were not even allowing any visitors into the ICU. He had assured her that he and Mike were there 24/7 and she could come as soon as Alex was ready to go home. So, she had decided to take a week off and help her friend settle in at home.

"How's the arm? Still hurting?"

Alex looked across at her friend. "It's getting better. Seems a little unmanageable first thing in the morning, but it's definitely better than how it was 3 days back."

"You'll tell me if anything hurts ok? I am here to transfer all the TLC that I do for Gabe to you."

Alex smiled warmly at Nina. "Of course. I am under strict orders to accept all the TLC I can get. It's not every day that I have the world around me treating me this softly."

"Well, don't get too used to it. Once you're back on your feet, you'll be on your own again." Nina grinned back.

Alex smiled into her coffee. Her conversations with Mike over the last few days told her that she wouldn't be too much on her own again.

Mike was back at work. She was glad that he had gone back to his routine and not stayed behind to baby her. It would be too weird having him around her, being all gentle and caring, all the time. She also knew that Nina had sworn blood oaths to him that she would call him at the slightest indication of need.

"You look like the Cheshire cat, my dear. Is there something you would like to share with me?"

Alex knew that Nina was the biggest advocate for her and Mike to get together. All these years, she had pretty much dissed any and all of her boyfriends. In hindsight, she had to give Nina full credit for seeing through the entire line of men she dated and judging them perfectly. She wanted more than anything to share with her friend, all the recent developments. But she was also starting to feel superstitious about the whole thing. It was Mike, after all. They had taken some steps forward in the past as well, just to completely go back on those in a couple of weeks. She would have to do a wait and watch this time. Besides, her friend was staying with her for a week. Being the astute character she was, maybe she would just pick it up herself.

"So, what's the plan for the week?" Alex asked Nina.

"Well, I will be taking care of work during the daytime. And feeding you at regular intervals. I might go out in the evenings to meet some folks, once your cavalry takes over after work."

"Hmmm, I didn't know the three of you had made plans behind my back on my care-taking schedule."

"Well, actually. It wasn't so much behind your back as in front of your face. You've just been out of it for a lot of the time due to the painkillers. Mike told me he'll come over at around six-ish. And he will stay with you till I get back. He and Mercer will figure out amongst themselves, based on whatever they're stuck in."

Alex sighed. "I'm sorry, Nina. I hate being a bother to all of you."

"Don't. Don't bother continuing that thought. I will remember that, next time I need you."

"That was low."

"As it was meant to be. You didn't get shot on purpose. If you can't expect your friends to take care of you when you are at your lowest, then I don't see why you need friends at all."

"You're right. I won't say anything anymore. Zip" Alex imitated a zipper going across her lips. Nina smiled and took the coffee mugs back to the kitchen.

"Now" she called out from the kitchen, "I'm going to setup my laptop and get some mails drafted. You just sink into that couch and watch your favourite flicks, you hear?"

"Yes, ma'am" Alex used the remote to switch on the TV. She wanted to catch the news before switching the DVD player on. Even with all the babying, she still needed to be on top of the developments in the city. The newscaster was just coming on screen when the phone rang.

Alex called out to Nina. "It's right here. I'll get it."

She switched on her cordless "Hello"

"Do you know how relaxed the DA's office is, with you out of the picture? Sarah is one calm chick to work with. I think I'm going to petition Mr. B to change my favourite ADA of record." Mike's voice was clear in spite of the constant talking noise that was the DA's office.

Alex smiled "I miss you too, Mikey."

She could hear him chuckle. "What's new at the home front? Has Nina started pounding you with questions about your love life already?"

"Nah. Nina's getting some work done, while I enjoy watching the news and some of my favourite movies, all day long. She told me she has plans for the evening, and one of Mercer or you will come over to take up the baton till she's back."

"Yup. It might be the both of us also if nothing major blows up by evening. We'll get you dinner on the way over."

"Okay, sounds good."

There was some silence at the other end, before he spoke again, very softly. She could imagine he was trying to speak silently without being overheard.

"It's totally unlike me. But I really wish I could be watching movies with you all day long too."

Alex smiled. "Go save the world, Detective. I will be fine and I will save a movie to watch with you in the evening."

She could hear him sigh. "Gotta go, Blondie. Your team sends their love."

"Give mine back to them….and, hold onto a little for yourself."

"A little will have to do for now. Take care of yourself, Coop. I'll see you later." Mike hung up the phone.

Alex was unable to take the smile off her face as she returned to watching the news.


End file.
